The cost of correcting errors in the design of an embedded system's hardware components can be higher than for its software components, making it important to test as early as possible. Testing hardware components before they are implemented involves verifying the design through either formal or more commonly, simulation-based functional verification. Performing functional verification of a hardware design requires software-based simulators and verification testbenches. However, the increasing complexity of embedded systems is contributing to testbenches that are progressively more difficult to understand, maintain, extend and reuse across projects. This paper presents an aspect-oriented domainspecific modelling language for the e hardware verification language that can be used as part of a model-based software engineering process. The modelling language is designed to produce well modularised models from which e code can be generated, thereby improving engineers ability to develop testbenches that can be more easily maintained, adapted and reused. We demonstrate the suitability of the modelling language through its application to a representative testbench from the automotive semiconductor industry.

Model-driven engineering addresses issues of platform heterogeneity and code quality through the use of high-level system models and subsequent automatic transformations. Adoption of the model-driven software engineering paradigm for embedded systems necessitates specification of appropriate models of often complex systems. Modern embedded systems are typically composed of multiple functional and nonfunctional concerns, with the nonfunctional concerns (e.g., timing and performance) typically affecting the design and implementation of the functional concerns. The presence of crosscutting concerns makes specification of adequate platform-independent models a significant challenge. Aspect-oriented software development is a separation of concerns technique that decomposes systems into distinct features with minimal overlap. In this article, we illustrate how Theme/UML, an aspect-oriented modeling approach, can be used to separate embedded systems concerns and reduce complexity in design. We also present Model-Driven Theme/UML, a toolset for model-driven engineering of embedded systems that supports modularised design with Theme/UML and automatic transformations to composed models and source code.

applications based on the concept of a trail, which is a contexAbstract-Healthcare professionals working in highly dynamic tually scheduled collection of activities. The framework conhospital environments typically have correspondingly dynamic tains reusable structure and behaviour common to mobile, schedules that are difficult to manage. Emergent tasks and shift-context-aware activity scheduling applications, saving develing priorities result in existing schedules becoming obsolete. Pervasive computing technology can aid healthcare professionals in opersfr ate dly addressingbcommon cene s. We organising daily activities by exploiting knowledge of planned illustrate how the framework can be used to develop an appliand emerging tasks, of patients and colleagues, and of the general cation to dynamically adapt the schedules of healthcare prostate of the working environment. The Hermes software frame-fessionals based on their personal, environmental, and patient work at Trinity College Dublin supports the development of mo-contexts.bile applications for human activity management that exploitsThe remainder of this paper is organised as follows: Section such environmental knowledge. Supported applications are based 1 motivates our work in the area of healthcare and Section III on the concept of a trail. This paper describes the Hermes framework and illustrates how it can be used to implement applications presents our model for facilitating change. Section IV prothat can automatically reorganise the schedules of healthcare vides details of the Hermes framework. Section V contains a workers based on sensed changes in their environment. discussion of pervasive healthcare-specific challenges. SectionIndex Terms-context-aware scheduling, pervasive computing, VI discusses related work and Section VII concludes the pahealthcare, trailsper.

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Developing testbenches for dynamic functional verification of hardware designs is a software intensive process that lies on the critical path of electronic system design. The increasing capabilities of electronic components is contributing to the construction of complex verification environments that are increasingly difficult to understand, maintain, extend and reuse across projects. Modeldriven software engineering addresses issues of complexity, productivity and code quality through the use of high-level system models and subsequent automatic transformations. Reasoning about verification testbench decomposition becomes simpler at higher levels of abstraction. In particular, the aspect-oriented paradigm, when applied at the model level can minimize the overlap in functionality between modules, improving maintainability and reusability. This paper presents an aspect-oriented model-driven engineering process and toolset for the development of hardware verification testbenches. We illustrate how this process and toolset supports modularized design and automatic transformation to verification environment-specific models and source code through an industry case study.